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Posted on 08/28/2025 12:58:32 AM PDT by nickcarraway
The Van Gogh Museum, the beloved Amsterdam home to many masterpieces by one of the 19th century’s most famous painters, said it could be forced to close if the Dutch government doesn’t appropriate more money to a much-needed renovation.
The museum threatened closure on Wednesday via press release, an unusual measure that the institution said was necessary because the government is “not keeping the promise” it inked with the Vincent van Gogh Foundation in 1962. The foundation owns most of the artworks on view at the museum, including iconic paintings such as The Potato Eaters (1885).
Signed after the artist’s descendants agreed to hand over hundreds of works to the newly created foundation, the 1962 agreement states that the Dutch state must continue to fund the construction and upkeep of the Van Gogh Museum. But the museum alleges that the country’s government has not committed enough funding the institution, which has filed a legal complaint about the matter, according to the New York Times.
The Times report stated that the museum currently receives around $10 million from the government annually—and it now needs around $2.9 million more per year to support costs related to climate control, elevators, and building infrastructure.
In its release, the museum described its building as being in “poor condition.” “Most technical installations have reached the end of their operational lifespan, are conceptionally outdated and increasingly difficult to maintain due to a lack of spare parts,” the museum said. “As a result, ongoing maintenance is no longer feasible and the systems must be replaced.”
To remedy the issue, the museum is undertaking Masterplan 2028, a $120.6 million project that would see the institution partially close to the public and begin necessary maintenance work. The museum said it needed the expanded government funding in part to offset an anticipated decline in ticket sales.
Safety is an issue, too. “If this situation persists, it will be dangerous for the art and dangerous for our visitors,” Emilie Gordenker, the museum’s director, told the Times.
Responding to the plea for additional funding, the Dutch culture ministry told the Times, “The subsidy for the housing of the Van Gogh Museum is a fixed amount that is corrected for inflation on an annual basis. The subsidy is calculated according to a methodology which is used for all national museums.” Moreover, the culture ministry said, the “Van Gogh Museum receives one of the highest subsidies per square meter of all national museums.”
The situation appeared to upset the Van Gogh Foundation, which said in a statement, “The Vincent van Gogh Foundation is deeply concerned about the accessibility of the Van Gogh collection in light of the current funding issues surrounding necessary investments in the Van Gogh Museum’s buildings and facilities.”
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Having been to it (2017)....I’ll say it’s worth seeing (one of the ten Amsterdam sights I’d recommend), and I agree...it is a aging building.
But the current entry fee is 24 Euro ($27) per adult, and 11 Euro for a student. Hefty cost. I would imagine they’ve looked at 30 Euro per adult but folks would shake their heads.
Dutch spending their cultural enrichment money on 3rd world trash
The funding was eerily cut off.
This is one of my favorite things to visit in Amsterdam....much better than the Anne Frank House, etc. The only place I liked more than the Van Gogh Museum is the Rijksmuseum. I don’t remember it costing anything like that much to get in though the last time I was there in 2003.
I imagine they could sell one painting and be at forever.
You’re going to leave people with a bad post-impression with puns like that.
Why don’t they make it interesting and add a Van Halen wing to the Van Gogh museum?
Heartbreaking.
I went to A-dam for St. Patrick’s Day weekend in ‘96 and walked past all the museums on my way to and from the Heineken plant. Back then, Heineken in Holland was sold in brown bottles but the beer itself was the best I’ve ever had. After walking past the Amsterdam Hilton, we walked into a cafe’ that had a special on red hash. On one of the walls was a TV tuned to reports of a nasty riot (Kurdish-Turkish) in Dusseldorf. We had been on our way to A-dam earlier that day on the Bahn when a German riot squad shut down traffic to let a series of green buses, K9 vans, transport vehicles and motorcycles through to the scene but we didn’t know at where they were going. After leaving that cafe’, we walked right past the Rembrandt Museum on our way to the Red Light district but it must’ve been the wrong one because most of the women we saw in those windows were older and way out of shape, so we walked past that and found another cafe’ that had Heineken on draft. The beautiful barmaid poured us a perfect pitcher and asked if we’d been to the museums and I said “maybe later” and “Happy St. Patrick’s Day”.
In first?!
They need to add some Hunter Biden paintings to their museum and people will FLOCK and pay good money to visit, they won’t need Dutch money...... There really IS a LAW of Supply and Demand... Personally I never saw REAL ART in Van Gogh. Maybe because his personal life looked a lot like a Minnesota Shooter.
Museums close all the time. It isn’t news. What did the museum do with the entrance fees? Did it received US Taxpayers money - from USAID?
A fanatical Van Gogh supporter cut their ear off in protest.
(Tomorrow’s headline today.)
Lol.
On my trade show trip to Amsterdam, I went to the Rijksmuseum, but the lines to get into the Van Gogh Museum were too long.
Wish we had more than a day for sightseeing.
I was in 2010. Worth the trip. Europe has a ton to offer. I’m glad I was able to go before all destroyed.
We have tickets to see this museum for next week.
Good. Enjoy! It’s interesting. Take the red district tour. Our tour guide was a retired prostitute. It’s just something different.
Van Gone..........................
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